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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22448143">Rust and Refuse</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathvalleyusa/pseuds/deathvalleyusa'>deathvalleyusa</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Silent Hill (Video Game Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU where the ghosts can look like their former selves, Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Cynthia Deserved Better, Gen, No Woobifying Here, Otherworld, Silent Hill 4, Verbal Abuse, Walter's POV, no beta we die like men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 14:08:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,635</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22448143</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathvalleyusa/pseuds/deathvalleyusa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Walter, trapped in his Otherworld with the ghosts after failing to complete the 21 Sacraments, is reminded of a clean memory in the one person he sees as the most filthy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Walter Sullivan &amp; Cynthia Velasquez</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Rust and Refuse</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In this world of piss and shit and rust, Walter has found one clean thing left.</p><p>It’s a memory, a token of his past that the Order bookends both sides. A woman, a college student who took interest in him before Pleasant River became a thing of the past. A fragment of a normal life he had stripped from him.</p><p>He’s reminded of her in grotesque ways. In corpses that resemble her a bit to much, in dreams that aren’t dreams but aren’t apart of this waking nightmare. Bloodied clothing in abandoned apartments, the views of Toluca Lake, obscured by fog.</p><p>The worst reminder is Cynthia.</p><p>His hatred for her has, for the most part, cooled. Now all that remains is a sick curiosity. Of ownership to her fate. If he was honest with himself, so does a fragment of lust. </p><p><em> Temptation had been her sin, after all. </em> </p><p>Cynthia’s sacrifice, while not his cleanest or impersonal work, had still been necessary. He owed her gratitude for that at least. Not that she would ever accept it. </p><p>If he was sorry, would she even accept an apology? Walter doubts it. Not that forgiveness is something he seeks. The only forgiveness he seeks is with God, with Mother, for failing once again to complete the ritual. He’s asked for Her forgiveness time and time again. There’s never any answer.</p><p>So instead, he fills his time watching. Observing. Filling boring, unending days that would let him think too much and stain his one clean thing left in the Otherworld.</p><p>One particular day, he spends hours watching Cynthia. Watching her wrythe on the ground, inky tendrils of hair moving in unnatural ways. Her blood is black and he no longer can differentiate the never-ending flow of fluid from her back from her hair.</p><p>He sees Cynthia’s shoulders seize as he shifts into the light, no longer content with looking on from the shadows.</p><p>“What do you want, you son of a bitch?” The words almost cut him. <em> Almost. </em></p><p>When she finally stands, he can see the mottled skin under her wayward hair. Purple pools under her eyes in gastly bags. Walter can’t help but hate the fact that even in death, even mutilated, her beauty has not waned.</p><p>“To talk,” he says simply. Walter is not a liar. He’s never been one. He wears honesty like armor, his truths the only thing separating himself from the blackened souls of this world.</p><p>“I have nothing to say to you,” Cynthia spits back as she turns to glare.</p><p>“Then company.” The corners of his mouth turn upwards into a lazy smile, never once reaching his eyes. </p><p>“Go to hell.”</p><p><em> Go to hell? </em>If this was not hell, what could it possibly be? The smile nearly drops, composure regained in a split second. </p><p>“This is the closest we’ll both get to it, Cynthia.” The muddy green of his eyes soak up her reaction, a bristle as one dead black eye burns with contempt. “We may as well enjoy the comfort of others while we’re here.”</p><p>“Comfort? What do you know about comfort?” she laughs. The teeth still in her mouth are stained and chipped.</p><p>It seems in an instant, she morphs into a different woman. One that resembles something closer to her living self, but still mottled and corpse-like. She is no longer a Sacrament; just… <em> Cynthia </em>. The girl from the subway he had been taken with so many years ago, the girl screaming under him as he beat the last breaths from her body. </p><p>Something deep in him is shaken. </p><p>Cynthia is like a bloodhound, can smell it on him. Walter sees it in her eyes, the malice, but can’t seem to move a muscles as she slinks close, grasping at his hips. Slender fingers slide under the heavy blue coat, eliciting a surprised grunt from him.</p><p>“This kind of comfort, Walter?” Cynthia says, voice laced with sticky sweetness. </p><p>She never calls him by his name. He knows she’s provoking him. Daring him to touch back, as he had desired for so many years. </p><p>In the end, he does nothing. Cynthia pushes back from him, glee on her damaged face. </p><p>“You’re never going to get it from me, you piece of shit!” </p><p>And she <em> taunts </em> him, laughs that he has never known her touch nor will he ever. Calls him profanities, spits and screeches in such a way that Walter <em> knows </em> deep down he is worthy of such abuse at her hands. </p><p>“Have you ever even kissed a woman?” Cynthia says, biting and hard. “Poor Walter Sullivan, only has touched a woman when he needs her <em> dead </em>.”</p><p>“You underestimate how normal my life once was, dear Cynthia.” A chuckle manages to find its way out of his throat, an attempt to find his way back to calm after the unexpected closeness.</p><p>That one clean thing, that memory, takes over his mind for a few moments. Strawberry blonde, bright honey eyes. Bright neon of the decade bathe her in their light. He can almost taste her again, feel skin under his rough fingertips. She was life, promise. A distraction from his true purpose, in the end. </p><p>“She was a good girl,” he says. “You would have hated her.”</p><p>It’s an ugly laugh that emanates from Cynthia. Full of disdain and disbelief, but somehow amused. </p><p>Walter notes it’s the most she’s allowed him to be in her presence in months. Usually she would slither off, find a hole and flit off to another part of the Otherworld after hurling an insult his way. Somehow, he feels less lonely around her. More present. Perhaps it’s the way her hatred burns so bright in sickly crimson and jagged lines. It’s enough to nearly penetrate the layer of grime around what remains of his soul. Make him feel utterly human.</p><p>“And I wasn’t a good girl?” she shoots back. “Why, because I dress some way that made you think otherwise? If she looked like me, would she have been bad? I’m surprised she’s even alive, knowing you.”</p><p>The smile slips off his face. </p><p>“She’s still out there, in the living world,” Walter says slowly, eyeing up Cynthia. Her veneer is beginning to crack, the ghost taking over the woman. “Laughing, crying, loving. Unlike <em> you </em>. No one can have you unless they want a flimsy memory of a person.”</p><p>He’s brought that fire to the surface again, dark eyes going pitch black in the flickering light of the subway. There’s a terrible laugh again, almost mixed with a death rattle. He hates the sound more and more. Walter decides that he likes it better when Cynthia is quiet. That this olive branch will never happen again, if he has any say in it.</p><p>“If no one can have me,” Cynthia sneers, wisps of hair floating about her, “then neither can you. You’ll never have me, and you’ll never have your living good girl either.”</p><p>Suddenly, the cooled hatred warms again. His patience has worn thin. </p><p>A hand snatches at the smooth skin of her neck, the other enveloping her wrist, gripping harder as the seconds pass. Cynthia had always used <em> words </em> to hurt him, or attempt to. Why had he not cut out her larynx when he had the chance? An oversight. Nonetheless, he smiles that <em> grotesque </em> smile, and whispers right back as she tries to fill dead lungs with gasps. </p><p>“You <em> are </em> mine <em> . </em> My kill. A fixture in <em> my </em> world. Don’t you fucking forget that.”</p><p>She chokes out that rattling laugh of hers. It only makes him grip harder. If only she would <em> stop, </em>learn to be someone different, he wouldn’t need to punish her. </p><p>“Did you forget? You have no power here anymore, thanks to Henry,” she manages to rasp. Her grip on his wrist tightens, jagged nails breaking into his flesh. </p><p>Walter sees he’s bleeding. For the first time in ages, he wonders why the shadow of a person like him would need to bleed. Why his flesh and blood, like the others, seems so real. So easily hurt, but never destroyed. God knows he’s tried with Jimmy Stone, done everything he can to erase him completely from this world. </p><p>“You don’t own me. You don’t own any of us,” Cynthia continues. He realizes that his grip on her neck has loosened. That he can feel trembling begin in his shoulders. “You’ve trapped yourself here with people who will never feel anything but hatred for you.”</p><p>Walter is not a liar; wears his honesty like armor. But with Cynthia comes harsh truths. She’s found the crack in his breastplate, shot her anger straight to his dead heart. He’s trapped in this world of piss and shit and rust and loneliness is his only companion, violence his only solace. </p><p>He releases her completely. Her cracked lips part wide as she heaves in a big, gasping breath, hair now wild and inky once more. Walter sees her, sees this thing he’s helped create from her rage and fear, and he can’t help but think of his one clean thing. How he’s sullied it with Cynthia’s involvement, her terrible truths about who he is and who he was always meant to be.</p><p>There’s nothing he wants more than for Cynthia Velasquez to cease her existence, a wish that will never be fulfilled. Imprisoned forever with a reminder of his failure, of his brutality. Of the grief of a stolen life that he punished her with too. </p><p>Before he’s even truly aware, rage has taken over. Broken skin smashes against broken skin in rapid succession. An attempt to take back his control, to put Temptation back in her place. A reminder that none of them will ever be whole, never see Paradise, because of his failure.</p><p>After a while, he can’t tell her grating screams from his own. </p>
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